


Zeraphine the Starry-eyed Songstress

by TriggerHell



Series: The (literally) Starry-eyed Songstress [1]
Category: League of Legends
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Backstory, Canon Rewrite, Piltover, Zaun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:34:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27236587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriggerHell/pseuds/TriggerHell
Summary: Zeraphine is a rising star of Piltover who sings the songs of people's souls. Growing up in Zaun, Zera is no stranger to struggle and hard work. But her bubbly and air-headed songstress persona hides a determined and dedicated young woman, who works a lot in order to give her sickly father a better life in the city of Progress.Zeraphine also hides a secret: she knows the truth about the hextech crystals that host the souls of the brackern. Having heard their cries, she uses her new position in Piltover to free their kin, owning it to the crystal in her possession that helped and guided her in her youth.With a web of connections in both cities, the literally Starry-eyed Songstress is composing a ballad of change without even knowing it.
Series: The (literally) Starry-eyed Songstress [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1988632
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	Zeraphine the Starry-eyed Songstress

**Author's Note:**

> Hello to you who clicked on this story! You are probably wondering 'What is this work about an unreleased champion with their name misspelled?' Well, with the official reveal of Seraphine, many people felt disappointed and down right pissed with her Runeterra version. So, as someone who writes and draws, I decided to take Seraphine's main concepts and make a version of my own. 
> 
> Now, disclaimer: I did this out of fun and love I have for the game. Riot has some amazing writers and artists but you can't hit gold every time and this is not a fix-it. This is just a fan getting inspired by a character and deciding to give it a go themselves since they felt dissatisfied with the official product.
> 
> With that out of the way, I hope you enjoy!

In the deepest slums of Zaun, a star shines brighter than any other.

Being born from unknown origins, Zeraphine was found by her adoptive father as a baby in the Slum level of Zaun. Since the older gentleman was a runaway hextech scientist, he decided to take the small girl not out of kindness, at first, but out of curiosity.

For as long as she has lived, Zera has never been human. With her butterfly-shaped ears and freckles made out of starry skies, she made for a valuable study-subject for a sickly run-down scientist in Zaun.

Fortunately, it didn't take long for the baby to grow on the man as he spent more and more time with her. Soon, he started raising her as his own and teaching her the ways of the City of Iron and Glass.

Life was never easy for Zeraphine. Not only did she live in a place where death was only one mistake away, but she also struggled with her very nature. For years, Zeraphine dreamt of distant skies and unknown constellations. Thanks to the Zaun Grey, she has never seen the clear sky, and yet, she knew every constellation, every little star like an old friend.

The constellations Zera saw in her dreams were no ordinary maps of stars: they mirrored notes on a sheet of music. These images became so familiar to her, Zeraphine started humming these songs from her dreams during her every-day activities. She never questioned how she could read those notes. It just felt natural to her.

But singing those melodies by herself unlocked another ability of hers.

It was an ordinary day in her father's workshop. Zeraphine was hanging out, humming her songs like usual while her dad talked with a client of his. Suddenly, she heard a foreign song alongside her own. Looking around with a frightened expression, she tried to find the source of that unfamiliar tune.

It turned out to be their client. And that wasn't the only surprising thing about the whole ordeal. The client's song was much more sinister with a sleazy tone. It sang of arrogance, riches, and tricking other men. But while his soul sang with an unwelcoming melody, he argued with her father about prices for his services. The louder their bickering grew, the more bombastic the customer's song became. Without thinking, Zera jumped up and ran to her father, shouting he was getting scammed.

The stranger didn't take kindly to that, of course. With a shout of outrage at the young girl, he left the shop without paying anything. Her dad stood there in shock for a few minutes but, once he realised what had happened, he scolded Zeraphine for accusing someone of cheating. She tried to explain through her tears what she had heard, but her dad didn't listen. With her tiny heart broken, Zera ran up to her room and didn't come out for a whole day.

The news of the incident travelled fast. The shop started rapidly losing clients, and soon, they found themselves with barely any money. Since Zeraphine's father had poor health, he relied on the services of other scientists to keep himself alive. But now, with no way to pay them, he fell even more ill thanks to the pollution and toxins of the city.

Zeraphine thought if she stopped singing her songs, then she wouldn't hear other people's tunes as well. Unfortunately, she was wrong. That incident seemed to unlock her magical hearing fully. Now, every time she was near another person, she could hear their soul, their true nature captured in an endless melody of complex emotions.

At first, it was just a little nagging in her head, like the beginnings of a headache. But as she turned older, her hearing seemed to grow even more powerful. Soon, she was unable to leave the workshop without being assaulted by a discord of songs from every corner of Zaun.

It was, in short, pure agony. All of these conflicting tunes battled for dominance, causing unbearable migraines daily. Soon, Zera could barely make out her own thoughts in the mess of strangers that had become her psyche. She started losing herself to the voices with no way out.

Zeraphine's father saw his daughter suffer more and more each passing day. It broke his heart to see her struggle to even get out of bed without collapsing on the spot. She barely ate and never seemed to sleep. She only laid in her room, hands covering her ears to protect herself from threats that weren't there.

With a newfound resolve, he decided to take action to not only help her but also apologise for ignoring her all those years ago. Pulling the last of their money, he got into contact with some smugglers in the upper parts of the city. He begged them to help him as he offered his services for free. 

Luckily, the smugglers took pity on the older man and gave him the task of creating tools for them while they got what he asked. Zera's dad worked day and night with them, designing and building with little rest in order to help her. When he finished with their order, the smugglers delivered on their end of the deal and presented him with his prize: a rare hextech crystal.

While the endeavour had been risky, it paid off in his eyes to help his little girl. Gathering his last supplies, he crafted a pair of headphones meant to dampen Zeraphine's magical hearing. With the device done, he went upstairs to Zera's room to give her the headphones.

The girl stared at the device as her father explained its purpose with a blank expression. She trusted her dad, but Zeraphine had already lost all hope of ever finding peace in her mind ever again. So, she didn't bother with putting the headphones on herself.

Her father took her rejection as apprehension. He placed the device on her himself and left the room to let her adjust.

But, instead of blessed silence, Zeraphine heard a loud heartbroken cry of a song that was layered by fear, sadness, confusion, and loneliness.

Jumping up in her bed, Zera listened to this chorus of voices singing a melody of ancient conflicts and far-away deserts. A song of generations born of brackern blood.

The teen felt sympathy for the voice. Despite her hesitance, she tried to sing back to the new consciousness, trying to calm it. She sang the tunes she hadn't sang in so long out of fear. 

The brackern calmed when they heard someone answer their cries, their prayers. Someone who knew how to sing with their soul was trying to comfort them. They, whoever they were, was not the same as them but someone similar, a being that knew how to answer their song with their own in a new yet familiar duet of forming bonds.

Zeraphine smiled for the first time in a while when she listened to the brackern answer her song in kind. The melody had changed from a crying wail into a beautiful and bouncy ballad radiating with excitement. 

While the brackern was happy about finding someone they can sing with again, they sensed a great deal of pain under the songs they heard. They felt the painful agony of being overwhelmed by voices that were not one's own.

As a thank you, the brackern taught Zeraphine how to handle her gifts. They showed her how to listen and how to even play along with the songs she heard. The brackern helped Zeraphine understand her nature as someone who can understand all the melodies in the world.

As her new friends taught her more and more, Zeraphine became less scared of her songs and started embracing her abilities as a part of herself again.

With a heavy heart, Zeraphine dismantled her father's gift and crafted the hextech crystal into a pendant that she started wearing under her clothing. She kept the brackern close to her heart, where her songs were the loudest. They helped keep the brackern calm and collected, preventing them from drowning back into sorrow.

When Zera found out what her father did in order to get her crystal, she swore to help him in any way she could. With her newfound confidence and a new friend, she left the workshop for the first time in months.

Since Zeraphine had perfected her abilities thanks to the teachings of the brackern, she decided to use them to get help for her father first and foremost.

Traveling across the different levels of the city, Zera managed to strike different sorts of deals for goods and protection for her dad. She took jobs from various clans for money, helped take out competition of the likes of the Dreadnought in exchange for security, and even volunteered to be studied by the Machine herald in exchange for medical aid for her dad.

Thanks to her magical hearing, she managed to come to an agreement with others very quickly. By listening to their souls, Zera knew what every new contact wanted to hear. Some wanted to get some labor done, and others needed specific help with different objectives. No matter how difficult the situation became, Zeraphine managed to weather the storm in her favour each and every time.

Before long, Zeraphine became an active member of the community, being a connection between the different citizens of Zaun. She became a trusted ally and confidant for many, securing a comfortable life for her sickly father.

She accomplished all of her jobs while singing her melodies across the City of Iron and Glass. That helped to boost her reputation even more. She got invited to many establishments for a show, earning a decent sum of extra money. She performed in different places, from run-down bars to the few standing opera houses.

Zeraphine discovered she loved to perform. She loved sharing her songs with others, taking all of these tunes around her into these new and exciting pieces she shared with everyone. It helped to make life easier and also boost people's morale during trying times. Which, in Zaun, was all the time.

Zeraphine's life seemed to be the best it could be considering where she lived, but unfortunately, it couldn't last forever. Someone, a minor lord, from Piltover heard rumours of a young woman in Zaun who sang the most beautiful melodies. Being a person interested in all things pretty and exotic, he ordered some contractors to bring this girl to him so he could hear her song himself.

Those contractors went to Zaun and located this girl's home. Sneaking through the pollution filled streets, they kidnapped Zeraphine from her bed in the middle of the night and took her back up above.

When Zera first came to the City of Progress, the first things she heard were the thousands and thousands of choruses of heartbroken brackern. Those songs came from every corner that had a hextech crystal. The woman was horrified by the truth behind the power of Piltover. Her own crystal started singing back to its trapped race, trying to assure them that they finally had an ally.

Listening to the pained songs of the brackern, Zeraphine was filled with anger and determination to free these creatures from Piltover's rule. Both for her new friend and herself. She felt a special kinship with these souls that sang with her own. And she could not let these horrible people take advantage of them any longer.

When she arrived at the estate, the lord took an instant liking to her. He started asking all about her life and unusual appearance. At first, Zeraphine refused to answer the stranger. But when he began threatening her and her dad, she gave in and answered the arrogant man.

He asked her to sing, and with her father in mind, she did. She sang the songs of Zaun that she had gathered over the years. The melodies of streets and suffering, of chemtech and thriving in a hostile environment.

The noble listened to this heavenly voice paint pictures of the city below. He wanted to share this experience with his friends, so he threw a party where Zeraphine would be the performer. 

He provided her with new clothes, dressing her in a sparkly outfit that mirrored the crystal on her chest. He tasked his tailors to blend her strange traits with her look, making her ears and markings look like accessories. He didn't want to spook his guests with this strange girl from the slums.

At the party, Zeraphine performed her songs, hoping she would let go once she satisfied their curiosity. But unfortunately, the greedy lord had another idea.

He proposed a deal for her. She would start performing in Piltover as a songstress under his name. In return, she would get a better life in the city above full of comfort and relaxation compared to her hometown.

Zeraphine was ready to refuse, but images of her father and the songs of the suffering brackern made her reconsider. Becoming a celebrity in Piltover would help her get close to the people in power, and through them, closer to freeing the brackern. It would also guarantee a better life for her dad away from the Zaun Grey that threatened his life more each day.

Playing along to the lord's bombastic and over-tuned song of arrogance, she accepted.

Today, Zeraphine is a rising star of Piltover, singing the songs of the city by deciphering the souls of the people around her. She dances along to the music of others for her own goals. Like back in Zaun, she started forming bonds with people, singing back to their songs to connect with them.

Like the constellations she saw in her dreams all those years ago, Zeraphine connects people in constellations of connections, complex maps of deals and alliances. All of this work to help her father and the brackern.

But, unbeknownst to her, Zera is composing a grand duet of two cities where every single confidant she has made is a note of importance. When the time comes, these two separate pieces will collide in a final crescendo of Piltover and Zaun.

**Author's Note:**

> Now, for behind the story:
> 
> 1) The main inspiration was my childhood, growing up in a small town where everyone knew everyone. I took this idea of a close-knit community and used it as a more practical use for Seraphine's motif. I love the idea of Seraphine being someone who brings people together, both in lore and in game-play, but I think Riot could have used the idea better in her bio.
> 
> 2) If it wasn't obvious, Zeraphine has a connection to Targon. If I ever feel like it, I will release a short story explaining her specific origins.
> 
> That is all I have to say for now. If you want to see my redesign of her then it can be found on my Twitter @TriggerofHell.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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